Misfits actress Ruth Negga talks Robert Sheehan and the Irish accent

Ruth Negga, recognised by most youngsters as the actress from the British drama Misfits, talks about how co starring with Robert Sheehan has attracted a young generation to a century-old Irish classic.

Ruth Negga perfects her Irish accent while on stage with Robert Sheehan in The Playboy Of The Western World

âItâs great, weâre getting all the Misfits fans coming in to the previews,â says Ruth Negga, whoÂ co-stars with Robert Sheehan in a new production of JM Syngeâs rollicking comedy The Playboy Of The Western World. Meeting the fans afterwards, sheâs finding that for many itâs a first-time sampling of straight theatre.

âIâm sure theyâll come back for more,â says Negga. âMisfits is an articulate and intelligent show âÂ itâs got the same kind of energyÂ as the play. Playboy is all about communication. Itâs human and funny and not cut off from the audience. It feels so vibrant. It makes a great first experience ofÂ the theatre.â

But this is no cheap, seen-âem-on-TV piece of celebrity casting. Both Negga and Sheehan have justifiably been marked out as rising stars; he thanks to Red Riding on TV, movie Killing Bono and as cult hero Nathan in Misfits; she racking up roles in Criminal Justice and Five Daughters on TV, with a starring role as Shirley Bassey arriving on BBC2 this week. Itâs their thirdÂ time together â they also pairedÂ up in Irish TV drama Love/Hate â and she is relishing the shorthand that provides.

âThere are some people with whom you donât have to say anything to understand each other,â says Negga. âItâs special when you have that.â

Neggaâs striking looks are aÂ result of an Irish mother and Ethiopian father and the moreÂ she talks about her role in Playboy, the more pronounced becomes her soft Irish brogue.

âI grew up in a lot of different places, so I pick up accents pretty quickly,â she says. âA friend told me thatâs a sign Iâm lacking my own personality. Still, I was doing a Welsh accent to play Shirley Bassey, and I knew the play was coming up, so I thought: âGood. Irish next. I can do that, thatâs me.â But itâs hard, the language is so rich and fast, itâs athletics for the mouth.â

In Playboy, Negga plays Pegeen,Â a frustrated barmaid who falls for Christy, the unlikely playboy of the title. For her itâs a combination of Syngeâs humour and the playâs timeless themes that have given it staying power.

âThe first bit of humour is when Christy tells everyone in the pub heâs killed his father â and heâs celebrated as a hero. Itâs so not right,â she says. âThe crowd project on to Christy whoever they wantÂ him to be.â

Negga readily agrees when IÂ float the idea that the way Christy becomes a hero has echoes of todayâs celebrity culture, whenÂ we create new idols on the most spurious of pretences. âBut we havenât updated the production, thereâs no need â it stands as it is,â she says.

For Negga, the strength of Playboy comes from its women, so itâs not hard to find a parallel with Shirley,Â a biopic that charts the young Basseyâs rise to fame from poverty in Cardiffâs Tiger Bay, through her encounters with prejudice owing to her mixed-race background, to the moment her showbiz career takes off. But initially the 30-year-old Negga wasnât a big fan of the balladeering Bassey.

âI thought it just wasnât my thing,â she says. âBut in the end I foundÂ her really cool, so intense and so extreme. At times itâs almost like sheâs a parody of herself. So I hadÂ to be careful not to do a parody ofÂ a parody of a parody â it was doing my head in.â

There are no worries on thatÂ score. Negga is magnetically convincing as the young diva, despite miming the big numbers (âmy big regret is that I reallyÂ cannot sing, though it is my voiceÂ on some of the audition scenesâ) and bearing only a passing resemblance to the singer.

âI was thinking about Denzel Washington in Malcolm X,â she says. âItâs about how he captures the essence â no, thatâs not the wordâ¦â Spirit? âYes, the spirit of the character. Thereâs this image of Bassey being strong and confident, with a wild temper if things didnât go her way. But that stemmed fromÂ a real insecurity.â

Maybe thereâs a parallel there. Negga, while warm and friendly, comes across as supremely self-assured. So she surprises me by admitting she was shocked to be offered Bassey. âI was, really,â she smiles. âI thought someone fabulous must have pulled out.â